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Winter’s ‘misery’ index skyrockets

WE'RE JUST MISERABLE: National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Mayes Boustead created an index a couple of years ago to judge the severity of winters based on snowfall and plunging temperatures. Photo: Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — A new winter misery index confirms what many Americans in the Midwest and East know in their all-too-chilled bones: This has been one of the harshest winters of our lifetimes.

And nowhere has been hit harder than Detroit.

National Weather Service meteorologist Barbara Mayes Boustead created an index a couple of years ago to judge the severity of winters based on snowfall and plunging temperatures. For Detroit, this is the most extreme winter since 1950.

Boustead calls it a misery index.

Detroit has plenty of company. Half of the 24 cities she looked at are slogging through winters that are among the 10 harshest since 1950. That includes Chicago, Philadelphia, Indianapolis and New York.